KonchokZoepa wrote:in example the refuge and bodhicitta prayer, the bodhicitta part can be understood as motivation for life or the meaning of life.

No, that is a motivation one can have in life but it is not some kind of grand meaning of life.

motivation for life to liberate all sentient beings, or the meaning of life is to liberate all sentient beings.

what is the difference between those two?

For there to be a meaning of life it would mean that all is happening according to some design (this found in other religions, God is the designer). But there is no grand design in Buddhism.

In other words, if liberating all sentient beings was the meaning of life it would mean life sprung up in order for liberating of sentient beings to occur. Whereas having a motivation in one's own life to liberate all beings comes from oneself and is not an underlying cause of life in general.

Although many individuals in this age appear to be merely indulging their worldly desires, one does not have the capacity to judge them, so it is best to train in pure vision.- Shabkar

KonchokZoepa wrote:in example the refuge and bodhicitta prayer, the bodhicitta part can be understood as motivation for life or the meaning of life.

No, that is a motivation one can have in life but it is not some kind of grand meaning of life.

motivation for life to liberate all sentient beings, or the meaning of life is to liberate all sentient beings.

what is the difference between those two?[/quote]For there to be a meaning of life it would mean that all is happening according to some design (this found in other religions, God is the designer). But there is no grand design in Buddhism.

In other words, if liberating all sentient beings was the meaning of life it would mean life sprung up in order for liberating of sentient beings to occur. Whereas having a motivation in one's own life to liberate all beings comes from oneself and is not an underlying cause of life in general.[/quote]

yes i am talking about personal or individual meaning to life that you give to your self and not in life in general. you have a good logic here i follow and agree.

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

KonchokZoepa wrote:i would say life has no intrinsic meaning also... but it has a meaning if you give it a meaning.

Yes.

i would make a distinction between life and samsaric life.

You can make it if you want but there is no such distinction in Buddhism that I'm aware of.

in general life is imbued with all the enlightened qualites and not just the samsaric qualities.

It is?

well i make the distinction because if life is samsara there is nothing else to it. if there is possibility of life without samsara, shouldnt it be included in the definition in the concept of ''life'', at least as a possibility. at least when speaking on a conventional level.

to answer it is? yes i think it is, if there would be no enligthened qualities in life, it would be impossible to generate or realize them. so they are there you just need to plug into the source.

this might go in the understanding of tathagathagarbha, i cant speak through the teaching though cause i havent studied it almost at all, but from what i understand buddhanature is a seed or alive present part of us that is also open to us, and without it enlightenment would not be possible. so if there are no enlightened qualities in life, where do you generate them. emptiness is not nothingness. maybe this is where people go mislead if they follow the prasangika and not incorporate theyre understanding with the teachings of buddhanature.

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

KonchokZoepa wrote:well i make the distinction because if life is samsara there is nothing else to it. if there is possibility of life without samsara, shouldnt it be included in the definition in the concept of ''life'', at least as a possibility. at least when speaking on a conventional level.

I don't think there is possibility of life without samsara because life occurs because one falls into samsara.

to answer it is? yes i think it is, if there would be no enligthened qualities in life, it would be impossible to generate or realize them. so they are there you just need to plug into the source....

Ah I get what you mean now.

Although many individuals in this age appear to be merely indulging their worldly desires, one does not have the capacity to judge them, so it is best to train in pure vision.- Shabkar

KonchokZoepa wrote:well i make the distinction because if life is samsara there is nothing else to it. if there is possibility of life without samsara, shouldnt it be included in the definition in the concept of ''life'', at least as a possibility. at least when speaking on a conventional level.

I don't think there is possibility of life without samsara because life occurs because one falls into samsara.

are you saying there is no life beyond samsara?

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

KonchokZoepa wrote:well i make the distinction because if life is samsara there is nothing else to it. if there is possibility of life without samsara, shouldnt it be included in the definition in the concept of ''life'', at least as a possibility. at least when speaking on a conventional level.

I don't think there is possibility of life without samsara because life occurs because one falls into samsara.

are you saying there is no life beyond samsara?

Yes.

Although many individuals in this age appear to be merely indulging their worldly desires, one does not have the capacity to judge them, so it is best to train in pure vision.- Shabkar

KonchokZoepa wrote:well i make the distinction because if life is samsara there is nothing else to it. if there is possibility of life without samsara, shouldnt it be included in the definition in the concept of ''life'', at least as a possibility. at least when speaking on a conventional level.

I don't think there is possibility of life without samsara because life occurs because one falls into samsara.

are you saying there is no life beyond samsara?[/quote]Yes.[/quote]

we are not having a mutual understanding cause i dont understand how you understood that question. can you explain why you said yes.

or is it because you are dissolving samsara and life concepts into non duality and say that they dont stand as truth in the face of true reality.??

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

we are not having a mutual understanding cause i dont understand how you understood that question. can you explain why you said yes.

or is it because you are dissolving samsara and life concepts into non duality and say that they dont stand as truth in the face of true reality.??

Hm, I guess you could say that too. Basically I think that when you become a Buddha you're not a sentient being anymore and so don't "live" like we do, you are beyond birth and death and hence beyond life.

Although many individuals in this age appear to be merely indulging their worldly desires, one does not have the capacity to judge them, so it is best to train in pure vision.- Shabkar

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

KonchokZoepa wrote:ok we have mutual understanding, nice talking with you

LOL!

LOL

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

Beyond just the meaning of life, does it make sense to speak of meaning at all when one is not fettered by conceptual mind? Pardon my perennial noobness, but it has always seemed to me that the "purpose" of trekcho or even madhyamaka meditations is to discover the intrinsic emptiness of meaning.

This undistracted state of ordinary mindIs the meditation.One will understand it in due course.--Gampopa

I must say that I am totally shocked to hear self-described Mahayanists saying that life (including the bodhisattva motivation) has no meaning, and that ceasing to exist entirely (not just within samsara) is the ultimate aim. However, that sure explains a lot about certain viewpoints that fly around here on Dharmawheel.

Karma Dorje wrote:I must say that I am totally shocked to hear self-described Mahayanists saying that life (including the bodhisattva motivation) has no meaning, and that ceasing to exist entirely (not just within samsara) is the ultimate aim.

One does not cease to exist (ucchedavada); however with the absence of the cause for arising there is cessation.

Life does not need to have any meaning for a bodhisattva (who understands the meaninglessness of life) to wish to free sentient beings from pointless rounds of samsaric existence. In fact it entirely underpins their whole motivation. They have recognized that there is no meaning to life, and they wish to rescue others from the delusion that life has meaning.

The point of Buddhadharma is to cease having the experience of birth, aging, sickness and death.

As Maitreya Bodhisattva is supposed to have said, there is not even the a needle point of happiness to be found samsara. Birth only occurs because of afflictions. When afflictions are eradicated, birth also ceases.

However, the meaningless of life does not prevent me from enjoying life. I actually rather enjoy it more, since I know that my existence is free from the burden of teleological meaningfulness.

Malcolm wrote:The point of Buddhadharma is to cease having the experience of birth, aging, sickness and death.

As Maitreya Bodhisattva is supposed to have said, there is not even the a needle point of happiness to be found samsara. Birth only occurs because of afflictions. When afflictions are eradicated, birth also ceases.

However, the meaningless of life does not prevent me from enjoying life. I actually rather enjoy it more, since I know that my existence is free from the burden of teleological meaningfulness.

Beyond confusion there is wonderment. Somehow, I don't think that we will find common ground on this point if generations of Tibetan scholars of far greater ability than ourselves could not.

We all make our decisions based on the meaning conveyed to us by our gurus and our reflection and experience. We can agree that finding ultimate meaning within samsara is not possible, but there is very much relative meaning. Beyond that, to me the natural state is the very essence of meaning and it is only by its inherent meaningfulness that we can distinguish the meaninglessness of samsara.

Karma Dorje wrote:Beyond confusion there is wonderment. Somehow, I don't think that we will find common ground on this point if generations of Tibetan scholars of far greater ability than ourselves could not.

We all make our decisions based on the meaning conveyed to us by our gurus and our reflection and experience. We can agree that finding ultimate meaning within samsara is not possible, but there is very much relative meaning. Beyond that, to me the natural state is the very essence of meaning and it is only by its inherent meaningfulness that we can distinguish the meaninglessness of samsara.

Perhaps it is primarily the definition of the word "inherent" or "intrinsic" that is causing disagreement?

It has always seemed to me that the sense of inherency is the primary obstacle* to realizing emptiness -- be it inherency of phenomena, of meaning, of inherency (which, come to think of it, seems a nice opposite to the emptiness of emptiness)...

But like I said, I really know nothing

* Perhaps only relatively -- there are no inherent obstacles (that is, obstacles "from their own side"). .

This undistracted state of ordinary mindIs the meditation.One will understand it in due course.--Gampopa